Chapter 16 - Safety First
Clearing the 5th floor changed many things.
The change that gave me the biggest tangible difference was that the general store’s level increased to level 2.
The items that had only been selling at the lowest grade until now developed to low grade, and in line with the blacksmith’s unlocking, equipment crafting materials were added to the sales list.
In other words.
The growth to 3rd rank that had been blocked until now is unlocked!
Wow! Ultimate skill! Skill cut scene! But is there a cut scene?
Moreover, I could now comfortably pour low-grade Elixirs of Growth into the experience bars that barely got scratched by the lowest-grade ones.
But there were still uses for the lowest grade ones.
Of course, they had to be used as ingredients for making cocktails, and also.
“Tsk tsk, you’re slacking again. Keep drinking.”
“Huwaaaaang!”
“No whining. It’s good for you, so drink hard.”
Our party’s new 5-star.
The Succubus-nim who will fill our lacking magic damage.
Tinya was drinking hard.
Originally, about 3 weeks?
I was going to patiently hold on and diligently collect fragments to exchange for a complete one.
Luckily, a complete contract that drops at a very low probability came out.
The energy of the universe was gathering to me!
“Grrrrr…!”
“Hieeek…!”
“Now, now, Lumi. That won’t do. We’re friends now.”
I patted the head of the loyal dog Lumi, who still hadn’t let her guard down against Tinya.
Ari ran away saying she had urgent business as soon as she saw Tinya’s potion absorption show.
Yohena hadn’t returned from the sanctuary yet.
It was a leisurely day.
“Yawn.”
Yawning, I started to ponder how to fit the last piece of our party.
The current composition is.
In terms of stars, 4555. Not bad.
In terms of attributes, Wind-Earth-Holy-Dark. Just a random deck.
In terms of positions, DPS Tank-Healer-Ranged DPS-Mage. Decent.
If I could have spent money, attribute unification would have been possible, but since package products couldn’t be purchased yet, I gave up.
We need to recruit a tank soon.
Harong-ssi is technically in the tank position, but she doesn’t want to fight, and honestly, her performance isn’t that good.
People have places where they fit.
Harong will continue to be the chief blacksmith.
“Woof! Drink woof! Lumi drank a lot too woof!”
“Huwaang…! Master, the dog keeps bullying me…!”
“Only Lumi can call the master ‘master’ woof!”
Moreover, due to the aftermath of upgrading Ari recently, we’re short on 3-star contracts, so we can’t turn 3-stars into 4-stars either.
The 4-star contracts that have come out are all duds, duds!
A healer without heal skills.
This is not a joke. Really none.
They say the best healing is killing enemies quickly or something.
Then why are you in the healer position?
A dealer with only single-target damage skills.
Maybe if boss raids were unlocked, but.
Not very meaningful in the tower meta focused on clearing mobs.
And also, a rear-line melee dealer.
…Melee in the rear line.
Has a gun but attacks with gun-sword techniques. Paper body.
At this point, I want to dissect the developer’s head.
Moreover, 3-stars can be grown to 5-stars with generic contracts.
But 4-stars need to be obtained 3 times as duplicates to grow to 5-stars.
Maybe when I’m stagnant later, but for now, it’s a bit…
We’re about to hit the ceiling.
Tank.
A tank should come out…
“Eeek…! You big-chested bitch…!”
“That’s a bad word woof!”
“Kuaang! Did you hit me? Did you just hit meeee!”
“Both of you, quiet.”
“Huwaang…”
“Eep…”
It’s really noisy.
“Lumi, don’t be too harsh on Tinya. I told you earlier too.”
“Woof! Tinya targeted the master last night woof!”
What?
Wha-wha-what?
What happened while I was asleep?
“…Tell me in detail, Lumi.”
“At dawn, Tinya suddenly got up and went to the master’s bed woof! And for a while, she stared at the master going ‘hehehe’ while fiddling with the master’s hand woof! Suspicious woof!”
“Eek, h-how did you…”
“…?”
What really happened?
…I have an idea, but.
“Tinya?”
Lift Tinya up.
Put her down.
After my ruthless interrogation, Tinya finally confessed.
“T-Tinya can make people have good dreams… So since you’re the master… I just wanted to give you a good dream… Hic…”
“Lumi, you heard that? It wasn’t with bad intentions, so don’t bully her too much.”
“Woof! But master, what kind of dream was it woof?”
“……”
I can’t say.
I absolutely can’t say that I had a happy time being swept away by waves of 108 Lumis wearing dog-print bikinis.
Although it wasn’t an erotic dream, it wasn’t something I could say in front of her.
Anyway.
“Tinya? First, stop crying. It was a good dream, but… Don’t do that from now on. When it’s time to sleep, we should sleep.”
If I keep having such dreams every night, I might die from frustration.
It’s already troublesome enough with only women in the Guild House.
Especially Yohena’s (nightgown) skin was amazing…
“Kyahaha! Tinya is a high-ranking demon! Unlike weak humans, I can live without sleeping!”
Tinya, who became arrogant as if she had never cried, flapped her wings (fake).
They were originally real wings, but when she converted to our side, they became decorative and even one of her horns disappeared.
It was the typical trope of an enemy becoming an ally (weak).
But still quite usable.
“Hmm, so you don’t sleep.”
Then.
Does that mean you can work 24 hours?
Ah.
There was something I needed to check before that.
“Tinya, how old are you?”
“Demons don’t count age! Umm, in human time, maybe about a hundred years? But it’s just a moment in the demon world!”
It’s legal.
I firmly grasped Tinya’s small hand.
“Tinya, I’m counting on you from now on.”
It doesn’t violate the youth protection law.
A clean age that doesn’t cause problems with Article 64 of the Labor Standards Act regarding child labor.
From now on.
You’re our shop’s night part-timer.
I think I don’t even have to pay her wages.
Hehehe…
Hehehehehehe…!
Not just a distributed 5-star.
She was a bundle of fortune.
A complete bundle of fortune.
The tower that suddenly rose in the center of the continent.
Created by borrowing the power of the Holy Grail, the last remaining divine object, to escape the gradually declining demon world and secure new territory.
But strong power is bound to be subject to causality.
Although it was a path connecting the demon world and the human world, the projection of the demon world’s power was strictly limited on each floor.
As if the will of the goddess who created the Holy Grail was strongly interfering.
So for efficient management, the demon world appointed tower managers to try to prevent the Revealer and heroes from climbing.
And.
“…Tinya was defeated? No, not just defeated, but betrayed and surrendered completely?”
Elise, the manager of the 10th floor, felt her head go blank when she heard the news.
Of course, she had hidden a so-called ‘conversion contract’ in her panties too, just in case of the worst situation.
But isn’t this too fast?
Why did she surrender so quickly?
Because managers could check the progress in countless ‘parallel dimensions’ created.
Not only did they break through at a clearly non-standard speed.
Elise felt an inexplicable fear at the fact that they subdued that cheeky brat in just 3 days.
Of course, it won’t be so easy from the 6th floor.
The greatest intellect among demons!
A genius of traps and tricks!
Elise, the demon of deception!
…Of course, she was stuck on the lower floors due to weak pure power.
And so she had almost no points to spend on setting traps…
Anyway.
She won’t be broken through as easily as Tinya.
Bring on the Revealer and heroes!
They’ll struggle and die without noticing my traps anyway!
“Nuhahahahat!”
On the 10th floor of the tower.
Elise’s frivolous laughter echoed.
“Sniff sniff, there’s another trap over there! So~ lame! Such a lame idea!”
After finishing Tinya’s setting, we came in to take a bite of the 6th floor as a test.
Since it was a section where the rewards themselves changed, we needed to farm by repeating Zone 1 10 times to drain stamina, even if we didn’t conquer it.
But, Tinya.
This one’s quite a gem.
She detects mana and diligently reports trap gimmicks that even I don’t remember accurately.
Traitor of the month, betrayer.
Tinya.
Why don’t you act a bit more guilty?
It’s not me who was betrayed.
“Well done, Tinya.”
“Grrrr…!”
“I’ll pat Lumi too.”
Lumi growled warily because I was showing affection to Tinya.
But soon she became all smiles when I put my hand on her head.
“Yawn.”
There aren’t many monsters, and Tinya finds the traps.
It’s a complete freebie.
“Today, let’s just repeat farm Zone 1.”
But let’s not overdo it.
Although our party’s overall firepower has increased after breaking through to 3rd rank.
Equipment is still being produced.
And we don’t have enough experience potions to get everyone to level 40.
Of course, they say kids grow by fighting.
But our heroes getting hurt.
Honestly, I didn’t want to see it.
When they were just data fragments?
Even if one person fell and somehow barely cleared with 1 star by struggling with just one person alive, that was fine.
We could do 3-star clear again later.
But.
“Heal!”
“Thanks woof!”
The only melee DPS and taunt.
Lumi took most of the attacks.
Although she healed cleanly with one heal──
It bothered me a bit to see scratches on that soft skin.
What if it’s not just scratches?
What if an arm gets cut off?
…What if she gets seriously injured right in front of me?
Of course, according to Yohena, when heroes receive fatal injuries, they’re automatically ejected from the tower and completely healed at the sanctuary.
But still, it’s worrying.
[Tower of Wishes 6th Floor – Ruined Village Zone 1 Cleared!]
“Good work everyone. Three rounds left? Let’s hang in there a bit more.”
As safely as possible.
As cleanly as possible.
As perfectly as possible.
Let’s go like that.